


Essays On God

by Spacejoth



Category: Bayonetta (Video Games)
Genre: Co-workers, Friendship, Gen, I JUS, I mean it's low-key but, Trauma, how the FUcK do i tag this, i jus want them to be friends, not offically. but they're basically co-workers here, the bayojeanne is hardly there sorry, they bonding over their trauma lads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23745400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacejoth/pseuds/Spacejoth
Summary: Unexpectedly, Luka understands her.
Relationships: Bayonetta/Jeanne (Bayonetta), Cereza/Jeanne (Bayonetta), Jeanne & Luka Redgrave (Bayonetta)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	Essays On God

**Author's Note:**

> This is coping. This is me, coping with quarantine.

A room previously filled with the clatter of keyboards was now stilled, as Jeanne sat quietly biting her lip. Luka, sitting across the coffee table from her looked anywhere but up. 

_ (The question he asked just moments ago rang in her ears. He had paused, sighed, and asked her "how do you just… Be okay with it, Jeanne?" _

_ "What?" She tilted her head, "be okay with what?" _

_ "Balder. I was there when he just… Took on the god of chaos. He was a good man in that moment, but he's the same person who killed my father." _

_ Jeanne sighed, closing her laptop slightly, "what are you getting at, Redgrave?" _

_ "He had you under his control for years. And he's the father of the love of your life.") _

Just minutes after, Luka shuffles his feet and looks back up, "listen, it was stupid of me to bring it up I--"

"How do  _ you  _ be okay with it?"

"Uh…" he shrugged, "It's not like Bayonetta and I really talk about our daddy issues often."

"This isn't about Cereza, I'm asking you," Jeanne sighed. 

Luka gave her an reluctant look and said, "the Balder that fell in love with Bayonetta's mom, that isn't the same Balder that killed my father. I guess, and yet…"

"And yet…?" Jeanne inquired. 

"And yet, I'm still reminded every day that the face of a murderer and the face of the man who saved the world are the same."

There was a heavy pause between them. Jeanne squeezed her eyes shut. 500 years under Balder's control were torture. There were glimpses of life here and there during those years, but the time was hardly her's. The only thing Jeanne ever remembered, ever cared about was that Cereza was safe. Perhaps in another time, things were rather different, more favorable. Perhaps in another time Balder was her father-in-law who gave her his blessings in asking his daughter's hand in marriage. Idyllic dreams, and not reality. 

"Well," she said softly, "we've all seen him at his best and his worst. Cereza has, too."

Luka nodded slowly, and fidgeted with the pencil in his hand, "I only wish there was a way to stop it all."

Jeanne did to, but time didn't function that way. The Balder that died, that tried to reawaken The Creator, that killed Antonio Redgrave, and made her a vessel of his deeds was the last Balder. The final one. 

"We can't be blamed for our traumas, Luka," Jeanne continued, "and no one is asking us to take that blame."

"Woah now, who said anything about trauma--"

" _ Luka, _ " Jeanne cut in, "I'm putting myself in a very unusual location of actually telling the idiot in front of me that we are going through the same thing. Please pocket your masculinity issues for just a moment." 

He nodded, and let her proceed without any more interruptions. 

"What I'm trying to say is… We aren't alone anymore. We're going to write this book," she pointed at their laptops, "were going to tell the world the full story."

Luka flipped the pencil in the air and caught it, his gaze drifting somewhere distant. At their return to the states from Fimbulventr, Jeanne found in him an unlikely ally. Together, they had the information and the drive to tell the true, full story of the Trinity of Realities. Working with him was unexpected, but she knew he was far more intelligent than his useless yearning let on. 

(He was a friend, particularly now that Jeanne didn't have to witness him fail at flirting with Cereza. He politely stepped down when she told him to fuck off upon their first day of working together.)

"The world deserves the truth," Luka declared. 

"And we're going to give them that," Jeanne agreed. 

She watched him as his eyebrows furrowed, mouth forming words without saying them. He did that quite a bit, Jeanne had noticed. Formed his sentences before speaking them. Unexpected, considering most of the things that flew out of him were utterly ridiculous. 

"All of my life," he began, finally, "has been for my father's work. He laid out this path--this story--for me, and I'll do anything to finish it in his honor."

"That's not an unruly cause," Jeanne affirmed with a pang of sympathy. 

"I guess not, huh?"

By the return to tapping his pencil, Jeanne could tell he was done with the deep talks, and she leaned back in her chair, "I think every one of us needs a therapist, wouldn't you say?"

Luka looked at her, confused for a moment before smirking, "I'll fucking say. Bayonetta and I have plenty of parent-involved shit to work out, I can't even imagine what's going on in your head."

Dramatically, Jeanne pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, "only centuries of mind control and the feeling of my lover's gaze slipping away."

Eyes wide, Luka leaned over the table with a comical gasp, "Oh, get this: Watching your father get torn in half? What a wreck."

A fist slammed down on the table, "oh, how I'll never be the perfect Umbran elder my mummies wanted!"

Jeanne's words fell off into laughter, and Luka shook his head, "y'know, we're supposed to be writing essays on god."

She shook her head, "fuck god."

"No, thanks. He's not my type."

She swatted his arm, and rolled her eyes, " _ not _ what I mean. I know your type, Luka."

"Oh yeah," he raised his eyebrows, "what's that?"

"Other people's girlfriends."

He sputtered, and blinked a few times at her, "hey now! She's all yours! You know that."

Sneering teasingly, Jeanne tapped her chin in false contemplation, "actually, never would have worked out. Cereza never really liked kitten whiskers for facial hair."

Crossing his arms, Luka scoffed, "kitten whiskers? Come on, give me more credit than that."

"Absolutely not. Your fashion is also simply atrocious--and before you can argue, you are the one who showed up to Fimbulventr looking like a fucking cowboy."

Hands up, he scooted his chair back just a bit, "Okay, okay. Fine."

His playful spirit slipped for a moment, "thanks, Jeanne. You get it. I'm.. Kinda shitty at this, but you're cool. You just.. You get it."

Jeanne shut her laptop completely, and repressed a chuckle at his awkwardness, "yes, I do, indeed, 'get it.'"

His mouth opened to say something, but the door to the apartment swung open, and Cereza (still in her work uniform) strolled in, lock clicking behind her. 

"You two are still at it?" She mused, walking over to give Jeanne a kiss on the cheek. 

"We just wrapped up for the day," Luka said, sliding his laptop in his bag. 

"You'll stay for dinner, won't you, Cheshire?" cereza called from the kitchen. 

Continuing to pack up his books, he hollered back, "I wouldn't want to overstay, I should definitely--"

"Set out three plates, darling," Jeanne said, eyeing Luka with a grin, "and take off that horrid nun outfit! You'll get it dirty cooking with it on."

Luka Redgrave was not the most expected co-worker. But when she watched as he and Cereza threw playful banter back and forth immediately after talking about the language of flowers for an hour, Jeanne found herself grateful he was there. 


End file.
